Mayan Doomsday Mag FAIL: DNews Nugget

Remind Me, What Date Is Doomsday Again? Is anyone getting tired of this doomsday tomfoolery yet? I know I am. Actually, I’m sick to death of it. After five years debunking the hell out of every single crackpot theory about how a Maya calendar magically foretold the Apocalypse on Dec. 21, 2012, I’m feeling like a marathon runner who’s on the final straight, running low on energy.

And so, like ace-space blogger Phil Plait — who has been debunking crackpottery far longer than I have — I reserve a special kind of smugness when the doomsayers make howling errors. Poking fun seems to give me more energy to cross that debunking finish line.

By now, we all know that FEAR SELLS. And where there’s money to be made, there’s a doomsayer with a book in publication. Tales of doom, gloom and death have crept into society’s psyche, often with depressing results.

As Phil points out on his blog Bad Astronomy (that now has a shiny new home at Slate, by the way), the doomsday magazines are now out in force. But what’s that? A crappy Mayan doomsday magazine with a “sell by” date of Feb. 11, 2013? Just in case you didn’t get that: 2013??

Case in point: even the publishers of doomsday rubbish don’t believe the world will end on Dec. 21 and yet they still want to cash-in on the biggest doomsday scam in recent history. via Bad Astronomy